James russell lowell biography summary graphic organizers

The versatility of American poet, editor, and diplomat James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) made him an influential figure in 19th-century America.

James Russell Lowell was born in Cambridge, Mass., on Feb. 22, 1819, of a well-established New England family. Following family tradition, he attended Harvard, graduating in 1838 and taking a law degree there in 1840. Soon after the publication of his first volume of poems, A Year's Life (1841), he gave up law to devote himself to literature.

Encouraged by the success of his second volume, Poems (1844), Lowell married Maria White, a poet and abolitionist whose zeal for attacking social injustices Lowell soon absorbed. For a year he was an editorial writer for the abolitionist journal the Pennsylvania Freeman.

Lowell's reputation as a social critic was soundly established with the publication of the Biglow Papers (first series, 1848). Speaking in dialect through the homespun Yankee character Hosea Bi